65-yr-old gets 2 yr jail for sexually assaulting woman in Delhi

New Delhi: A 65-year-old man has been sentenced by a Delhi court to a two-year imprisonment for sexually assaulting a woman, but was acquitted of rape charge.

Additional Sessions Judge Kaveri Baweja sentenced Manmohan Singh to two years in jail and imposed a fine of Rs 10,000 on him for assaulting the woman with the intention to outrage her modesty.

He was acquitted of rape charge due to absence of evidence with regard to his potency to establish physical relationship and also because the woman had not mentioned rape in her statement to the police and only deposed about it for the first time in court.

The court let him off on the charge of rape saying, "I find myself in agreement with argument of defence on absence of evidence with regard to potency of the accused."

The court also noted that "the victim, for the first time, has deposed before the court that she has been raped by the accused and hence her testimony to this extent cannot be accepted."

The prosecution case was that in September 2007, the victim saw an advertisement in a Hindi daily regarding vacancy for caretakers in a pharmacy in Karol Bagh.

When she contacted the office on phone, she was asked to come for an interview on October 3, 2007, about which she informed her family.

The victim said when she went there, she met a man who introduced himself as Manmohan Singh. He asked her inappropriate questions regarding her physical statistics.

When the victim objected to it, Singh told her such questions were being asked as they needed to hire active girls.

When she chose to leave the place, Singh offered her tea while he went to an adjacent room.

After consuming tea, the woman started feeling giddy and lost consciousness. On slightly regaining her senses, she realised Singh was sexually assaulting her but could not resist due to feeling of weakness.

When she did not return home till late evening and also did not answer phone calls, her family members reached the office and found that she was lying unconscious and being sexually assaulted by Singh.